How I Sold a $40,000 Guitar for $900

  In the aftermath of guitarist Jeff Beck’s death earlier this year, a friend brought over a DVD in which Beck talked about his favorite guitars. One – the rarest in his collection – recalled an incident that remains painful decades after it happened.

  For those unfamiliar with him, Beck was one of the world’s great blues and rock and roll guitarists. No less a guitarist than Eric Clapton said he watched him perform and had no idea how he played some of the things he did.

  The rare guitar in his collection was a 1954 Fender Stratocaster. Stratocasters, along with Gibson Les Pauls, have been the most popular electric guitars in the world for years. Millions have been sold since 1954, the year Fender began producing them.

  On the DVD, Beck said that he was lucky to get one. If Jeff Beck, one of the best and most famous guitarists in the world, was lucky to get one, what would the odds be of an average Joe being that lucky?

  Enter average Joe, a.k.a. yours truly. I actually owned one of these rare instruments. How I got it, and how it got away from me, are tales you don’t have to be a guitarist to appreciate.

  The first tale began with a desire to have a backup guitar. I only had one guitar at the time, and figured it would make sense to have a second  onstage if the first broke a string, got knocked over and damaged or otherwise was out of action.

  But what sort of guitar? After ruminating on it for a while, I decided not only on the sort of guitar but a specific guitar. It had been years since I’d heard it, but the memory of how great it sounded was indelible.

  In the early days of rock and roll, one of the most popular bands in Boise was a group called Dick Cates and the Chessmen. They played to sold-out audiences on Friday nights at the long defunct Miramar Ballroom on Fairview Avenue.

  Cates was the lead singer and a big reason for the group’s popularity. When he was born, the gods reached down and touched his vocal cords. People used to compare his voice with that of the late Roy Orbison, who had an impressive string of hit records and was known for the range and quality of his distinctive voice. I was far from being alone in thinking that  Cates’s voice was every bit as good. He should have been famous.

  The Chessmen’s guitar player was a man named Darrell Francke. Two things invariably wowed me at a Chessmen’s gig:  Cates’s voice and the sound of Francke’s guitar – a 1954 Stratocaster. There was just something about the tone of those early guitars that newer ones seem to lack.

  Not having heard anything about Francke in years, I had little hope of tracking him down but made some calls and got lucky. He was living in Jordan Valley, Ore., and had a listed number. I gave him a call.

  “Darrell?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Tim Woodward. You probably don’t remember me, but I used to come to a lot of your dances.”

  My expectation did not go unfulfilled. He didn’t remember me in the slightest.

  “I’m calling about that old Strat you used to play. You wouldn’t still happen to have that, would you?”

  “I do,” he replied. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about selling it.”

  I was at his house in Jordan Valley two hours later. The guitar definitely looked its age, but it sounded just fine. We agreed on a price of $300.

  On the way home with it, I noticed the serial number: 0935. The 935th Stratocaster made – out of millions.

  It’s hard to believe now, but neither I nor any of the musicians or guitar makers who saw it had any idea how much it was worth.

  Fast forward a few years. When a friend of a friend saw the guitar, he said I should send it to his friend Howard in Los Angeles. 

  “He can get you top dollar for it.”

  Itching to buy a new guitar by then, I sent it to Howard. A week or so later, my phone rang.

 “You (expletive deleted)!”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Howard in L.A. You didn’t tell me the neck on this guitar was  refinished or that it had new frets installed.”

  “That was because some of the old frets were practically falling out. The guy who did it thought it made sense to refinish the neck at the same time.”

  “Big mistake! Collectors want everything original. Anything new or altered from the original lowers the value.”

  “Fine. Send it back to me.”

  Instead, he sent me a check for $900.

  I called him back.

  “I don’t want your $900. Send me back my guitar.”

  “It’s too late. It’s already in Japan.”

  Sold, no doubt, to a collector.

  God knows what Howard got for it, but three guitars like the one that cost me $300 currently are advertised online. The least expensive asking price is $40,000. The most expensive, for one in mint condition, is $250,000. 

  Such stories abound – the rare stamp used to mail a letter, the classic car unwittingly sold as a junker, the priceless antique sold for a few bucks at a yard sale.

  That does absolutely nothing, however, to ease the pain of selling a guitar worth five figures for $900.

  Or to change my feelings about Howard.

  He’ll probably never read this, and for all I know he may not even be alive now. But if he is alive and he sees this, I hope he feels at least a twinge of remorse.

  And if not, may he ship an expensive instrument on trust someday to someone just like himself.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him a woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.